Killer of headteacher still poses 'a genuine and present risk'

The killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence poses a "genuine and present risk" to the public according to official papers handed to the courts by the Home Office, it was revealed tonight.

Learco Chindamo has been rated as the highest level of risk because of his notoriety, and would also need to be excluded from certain parts of the country, the documents revealed.

The details emerged in the written judgment from an immigration tribunal which yesterday ruled Chindamo, who was 15 at the time of the appalling crime, should be allowed to stay in Britain at the end of his prison sentence.

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Home Office officials submitted a letter to the tribunal which showed Chindamo had "overacted" to situations on several occasions, and predicted it would be extremely difficult to find him somewhere to live on release.

"It was considered that he posed a continuing risk to the public and that his offences were so serious that he represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle as to justify his deportation," the judgment said of the Home Office's case.

It added that while it was unlikely that Chindamo would reoffend, he had been ranked as a high risk under the multi-agency public protection arrangements.

However, this high-risk ranking was largely due to the media interest he would receive on release and the risk of a "backlash", it added.

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Chindamo's defence team said there was no evidence their client, now aged 26, was a serious and present threat, noting that reports on him had been "very positive" and the Parole Board had been "very impressed".

The document's details will throw a new light on the case, which Conservative leader David Cameron said today should lead to the abolition of the Human Rights Act.

Mr Cameron said the Act should be replaced with a British Bill of Rights, which would clearly set out rights and responsibilities.

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He said: "The problem for this Government is that the Human Rights Act is their legislation and they appear to be blind to its failings.

"It is a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country. What about the rights of Mrs Lawrence?

"We ought to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights that we can write ourselves that sets out clearly our rights and responsibilities."

Mr Lawrence was stabbed to death in an attack outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, west London, in December 1995, while trying to protect a 13-year-old pupil.

A gang of 12 youths led by Chindamo went to attack the pupil, who had quarrelled with a boy of Filipino origin.

Chindamo, whose mother is Filipino and father Italian, punched and stabbed father of four Mr Lawrence, who died the same evening.

Mr Lawrence's widow said she had always been given the impression that the killer would be deported at the end of his sentence.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Frances Lawrence said: "In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life.

"Chindamo destroyed that right yet he has used the legal process to enable him to live as described in Article 8.

"The Act works in his best interest. It is ill-equipped to work in my family or for people in my situation. That seems to me a major conundrum."